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District by District House Polls and the Impending GOP Wave

Below the fold, I have compiled a comprehensive list of all the recent polls of competitive house races. Statewide Senate and Gubernatorial polling data are readily available but resources on House race polling are quite scarce. So here is the list for you political junkies out there (let me know if there is anything missing).

The striking thing about these polls is that they foreshadow an impending red tsunami in November. Yes, these are mainly internal polls or surveys conducted by political consulting firms, but they provide a general picture of the house playing field. Furthermore we can compare these results to those of past election cycles and conclude that there are a record amount of incumbent Democrats who are either trailing their Republican challengers or leading within the margin of error. This is quite astounding because House races, unlike Senate races, are much more volatile. Due to the lack of name ID for the challengers, less publicity, and a more unpredictable electorate, polls usually don’t show so many challengers doing this well two months before an election. In fact, in 2006, when the Democrats picked up 31 seats, only 11 Democrat challengers were leading in pre-election polling data, according to the Cook Report.

The other striking thing about the polling landscape is the amount of Democrat leaning districts in which the Republicans are polling strong. There are currently 69 Democrats holding seats that are rated as Republican districts by Charlie Cook’s partisan voting index. That means that if Republicans would only win R leaning districts they would pick up 69 seats, almost twice the minimum necessary to flip the House. The House polling data suggests that there are a few dozen Democrat seats beyond those 69 seats that are either in danger of flipping or potentially competitive.

Now, obviously not all 69 Republican challengers are in solid position to win in November. We have the rare anomalies such as Idaho-1 in which incumbent Democrat Walt Minnick is still leading by a comfortable margin. However, in most of the other competitive districts where the Democrat is leading, the challenger has less than 50% name ID. Almost every Republican who has a name ID any where close to that of the Democrat, is leading in the polls. The cumulative results of these polls indicate that there is almost no limit to how immense this red wave will ultimately be.

Here is the list of district polls for the competitive House races. According to a Charlie Cook report, there are 32 Republicans leading, and that report was filed before American Action Forum came out with 6 more polls that had Republicans ahead. I have a total of 51 Democrat seats in which the Republican is tied or ahead. There are a number of others in which the Republican trails by less than 6 points. Also, many of the polls are old and were taken before the environment got as toxic as the current disaster for the Democrats. Furthermore, this list doesn’t include many districts that it is so clear the Republicans will win, they are not even deemed competitive anymore. I couldn’t find all of them, but 90% should be included in the list. Most of these polls are of districts that are either incumbent or open Democrat seats.